Saturday, August 28, 2010

Stars other than Sol are very far away, too far with our current technology to have any realistic chance of visiting them; on the other hand there's no reason to delay identifying, studying and plotting a course. This article confirms the discovery of a 7-planet system:

Astronomers have discovered a new solar system that appears to have almost as many planets as our own. They found up to seven planets orbiting a star that is of a similar type to the Sun, including one that is likely to be rocky and less than 1.5 times the size of the Earth.

Reporting his team’s discovery in France today, astronomer Christophe Lovis said: “We have found what is most likely the system with the most planets yet discovered. This remarkable discovery also highlights the fact that we are now entering a new era in exoplanet research – the study of complex planetary systems and not just of individual planets.”